Synopsis

A soul-baring, brutally candid, and highly colorful memoir of the two years--1977 and 1978--when Reggie Jackson went from being an outcast to a Yankee legend.

In the spring of 1977 Reggie Jackson should have been on top of the world. The best player on the Oakland A's dynasty teams, he was the first big-money free agent wooed by George Steinbrenner into coming to the New York Yankees. But, as Reggie writes in this vivid and surprising memoir, until his initial experience with the Yankees, "I didn't know what alone meant." Persevering against an alcoholic manager, ostracism from teammates, and negative stereotypes in the New York City press, Jackson fought against the odds to become "Mr. October." Filled with revealing anecdotes about the notorious "Bronx Zoo" Yankees of the late 1970s, bluntly honest portrayals of his teammates and competitors, and especially of manager Billy Martin, Becoming Mr. October is a revelatory self-portrait of a baseball icon at the height of his public fame and private anguish.

Excerpt

Yankees vs. Red Sox, September 1977:

“Do you ask Babe Ruth to bunt—or Cookie Lavagetto? Willie McCovey—or Phil Rizzuto? "But I was learning. Billy Martin said bunt, I was prepared to bunt. Reggie Cleveland threw in on me, though, so I couldn’t get the bat out and had to take it for a ball. I looked back down to Dick Howser—and now the bunt was off. Cleveland threw me a fastball, and I fouled it off. "I looked back at Howser. The bunt sign was back on. Tell me, does this make any sense at all? "I got ready to bunt again, but Reggie Cleveland threw another ball in. It was like they were picking up the signs, which maybe they were. It was like they knew I was going to try to lay one down. "Personally, I thought they were making a mistake. If it was my team and Reggie Jackson wanted to bunt, let him bunt. "Instead, the count fell in my favor, the bunt was taken off, and Cleveland hung a slider. It was room service. The rest is history.”

About Reggie Jackson

Reggie Jackson hit 563 home runs and drove in 1,702 runs over the course of his twenty-one-year career; he played three World Series-winning seasons with the Oakland Athletics, and two with the New York Yankees. He is a special adviser to the Yankees.